THE WORLD AND US

The world asked somebody a question the sound of underwear,
like freshly folded underwear.
It was spring and the flowers were out for a walk.
I stood on the flagstone path drinking a tonic.
The world sent an airplane across the sky at the precise moment
somebody started to answer the world.
Everyone watched the plane scribble its white crayon
across the blue paper way up there.
I asked a woman if her name was really Luann.
The world repeated its question, this time the sound of overalls,
overalls caked in mud from fourwheeling at the bog
with the Jeep doors off and the hard top off and the radio loud.
No one really got what the world wanted,
but we admitted it had a good way of speaking.